


Lessons in Darkness: Scherzo

by ScarlettsLetters



Series: Lessons in Darkness [4]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Venice, Anal Fingering, Bondage, Bottom Natasha Romanov, Candles, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Courtesans, Dom Wanda Maximoff, Dom/sub, F/F, Girls Kissing, Historical Fantasy, Lesbian Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Porn With Plot, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Predicament Bondage, Rope Bondage, Shibari, Stephen Strange is a Voyeur, Strangewitch, Sub Natasha Romanov, Vaginal Fingering, Venezia | Venice, Wax Play, top wanda maximoff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 09:42:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14541957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarlettsLetters/pseuds/ScarlettsLetters
Summary: The Lessons in Darkness series follows Wanda Maximoff in pursuit of an alternate universe Natasha Romanov. The coming darkness revealed in Infinity War may be undermined or averted if she can acquire the lost volume of the Hermetic Corpus. In those pages, a long ago Sorcerer Supreme penned spells and lore that Doctor Strange desperately needs.InScherzo, Natasha is bound thoroughly in rope and subjected to every manner of temptation that Wanda can conjure. Armed with candles and rope, she teases the redheaded courtesan to the brink of madness. She holds Natasha at the threshold of an orgasm and refuses to let her come, the better to undo the woman totally, utterly, and completely. Only disarming her opponent of her greatest weapons can the witch be sure of her safety. And let's be honest -- she is determined to thoroughly and completely ruin Natasha Romanova.





	Lessons in Darkness: Scherzo

**Author's Note:**

> Part One: [Sonata](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14525865)  
> Part Two: [Allegro](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14528643)  
> Part Three: [Adagio](https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/14537856)
> 
> * * *
> 
> In search of something to oppose a coming doom, Doctor Strange dispatches his beloved, Wanda Maximoff, to steal a missing piece of the Book of the Vishanti from another dimension. That treasured grimoire happens to be in the possession of the famed courtesan Natasha Romanova in an alternate universe Venice.

_Touch me._

Is that what Natasha Romanova truly wants? Wanda tips her head up to consider those mercurial grey-blue eyes, her own vast mirrors of a twilit sea in a golden frame. She smiles, a faint curve of her lips, the sphinx's very enigma wrought in the flesh.

How often she cries the same to her beloved. Stephen Strange resides on another dimensional plane while she plunders the imagined innocence of a demure courtesan, the toast of Venezia, a city commanding an empire over half the Mediterranean Sea. Surely he watches her expert ministrations to disarm an assassin of the Russian Empire, a challenger in the fractured politics of a realm all too different from her own.

Here the thought of electricity may exist only in a British scientist's eye. Or perchance one Zulu or Chinese or Peruvian. Wanda knows very little about the state of international affairs, nor do they matter. A grave future hinges upon her success in locating a precious book taken by the woman she bound and now disassembles piece by piece.

She withdraws from the courtesan's side to find the rosewood box. A few fingertips' worth of the balm are gathered, coated along the digits of her left hand. The right steadies the Russian's hip for a moment, then nudges her back and forth to a slow, swaying rhythm accompanied by the ropes pulling through the eyelet. It might be well the same as the slow pace used to penetrate, but the effect is different: her fingers straying to touch herself won't quite reach so far. The provision left in the slack on her arms is enough only to tease her folds from behind, no more.

Natasha's brows lift as she meets the gaze of the sorceress with her own, corners of her mouth twitching upwards when she sees that faint smile illuminating gilded features. Those grey-blue eyes follow when Wanda moves away towards that mysterious box -- not too far, as she is soon there to give the courtesan a nudge, causing her to sway back and forth. The announcement is received with a flicker of her eyes, faint bewilderment and the ghost of a suspicion there in her expression, a suspicion that becomes more of a realization, when she feels the fingers of her bound hands being coated with the balm.

"I will. And so will you." Wanda circles around, adding more of the olive oil and honey ointment to Natasha's fingers. Up over the knuckles, down to the tips, a steady caress until coated by the slippery material.

The courtesan feels a silken kiss pressed to her shoulder, then the other, and again at the side of her neck. Hands withdraw from her for a moment, just in time for her tender skin to register another flick of Wanda's tongue up her graceful neck. The witch leans in to her ear, a whisper poured there. "For every finger you put inside yourself, I will add mine." If only it were so easy. "Yours enter that pretty rosebud of yours. And mine go here." A tap of a finger reaches around past her hip, using the flag of the silk robe to limit direct contact, landing right at the apex of her cleft where her clit awaits attention. So close, so very close to a touch.

"And if you do not care to, darling, you'll have to find another way to climax. I can think of a few." The shivering breath is matched by another kiss layered on her throat, teasing down, landing upon her shoulder. And there, Wanda bites hard enough to mark, perhaps, and runs her fingers in a forked vee over the courtesan's slick labia, sweeping down and up, giving fleeting touch.

There is a faint shiver in the courtesan's frame, when she hears that scandalous whispered suggestion. And yet Natasha appears to be slightly hesitant to give her consent right away, probing the slick coat on her fingers as she rubs them against each other behind her back. Even so, she is quick to nod, when Wanda touches lightly through a multi-layered barrier of silk where she yearns to be touched. "Yes..." she breathes. The golden-skinned woman is not quite in her circle of vision. Feeling her kiss coming from the other side against her throat, trailing down, the bite comes unexpected, making her flinch at first, and then shudder lightly. "I... will do as you suggest."

After which her index finger of the right hand ventures down, searching for that backdoor, touching the dusky starburst tentatively before she introduces it, slowly, carefully.

True to her word, Wanda gently touches the courtesan at her neck and shoulders, kneading gently with her palm and fingers to ease any discomfort. The position demands its physical toil, and she is not so lost to the endorphin rush as the witch intends. _Soon._ Tenderness and violence, demands and yielding, all melt into a single action chaining kisses through the damp fabric draped over her torso. Marching down the line of her collarbone, those kisses are impregnated by heated breath pooling through the fabric and nibbles blossoming their mark. In the mirror, their reflections are entwined, the captive Russian besieged at an angle.

Dusky tresses cling to the sodden material and drag away in a deep bistre skein, teasing where fingers will follow. Not the ones coated in the lineament, but they will pinch and caress bound breasts and hard nipples, skimming in a zigzag towards the divot of Natasha's navel. Circling that with her thumb, she skims lower still until leaping away from fabric to bare skin.

Oh! Wanda has not forgotten about the sensitive breasts of the courtesan, and bless Polyhymnia for that, Her flesh is all the more so in their current roped state. Thus the shiver that greets the caress of her full curves and importantly, the pointed nipples standing triumphant over pale rose fields. More than appreciative, Natasha squirms ever so slightly, and a soft, pleased moan unspools from her lips. Her half-lidded grey-blue eyes shift briefly towards the mirror, and seeing this unusual union of a dark-haired beauty with her, the redhead, has her eyes open a tad further for a moment, in somewhat intrigued fascination. It is no secret that all Venetians suffer from a weakness for beauty, and even an adopted daughter of Venezia on the sea is no exception, as the image of them both entwined impresses upon her.

The first caress along Natasha’s pouting sex is passing gentle, no more than leaving a trail of the balm upon the fluted ridges of her folds. No less than a tease, flowing all the way down the narrow fissure to its end, and back up again. Thrice the path is taken at leisure, nails used to lightly toy with nerves and not finished. It's then, just so, that Wanda considers her position with the mirror and stops. The angle is corrected, slanted back to give a better view of their hands together even if the blushing courtesan averts her gaze and stares down at herself by angling forward.

A finger traipses up her knee to her mons again, then traces back down towards that bared pearl. Slow circles weave around it in loops, then drag the hood back to reveal the pink nub. Her thumb pinning the veil away, she slides her index and middle digits down and wide, holding open the full length of the Russian's slit to the mirror's unblinking stare. "Look."

One word. Is it necessary to say more? Not in this case, as her other fingers come into play, just one tip swirling around in lazy circles across the entrance, barely in contact. Barely until Natasha is the witness and the participant, the begging supplicant and the holy instrument. And when her eyes are fixed to it, she'll feel as much as see Wanda slide the digit in, back and forth, millimeter by exquisite millimeter.

The mirror, once repositioned, reveals a clearly flushed Natasha, eager to continue. The dancer in all her rope-bound glory draws the gaze of the same when thus told, her cheeks reddening further when she beholds the opening of her own sex presented to her. Her voice escapes in a sigh at the finger Wanda is about to insert. That sight makes the Russian hold her breath, and widen her eyes, a sensual spectacle to see where the finger claims her. Tat act observed as well as felt, she cannot help but greet the slender digit with an appreciative shiver, a delicious heat that increases instantly in her depths. Her arousal is plain, dripping along the margins of flushed rose flesh, her yearning for more a ripple of fluttering muscle gripping tight.

It won't be a penetration deeper than her second knuckle as Wanda knowingly presses up, searching for that spongy spot upon the anterior wall. And finding it, there the delicate thrusting and circling takes on a maddeningly erratic dimension even as she maneuvers from this angle to that, learning what garners the sharpest of reaction.

Natasha’s other hand ventures further, trailing down to where unfamiliar territory beckons. Her fingertips teasing along the puckered rim transform the faint tingle meanwhile into a strong yearning. She spins with the ropes fed through the strong white eyelet and strains to reach the forbidden entrance between her buttocks. The first light brush over her folds elicits a gasp, her hips coming upward as if to press themselves against the touch. Another moan jettisons a shred of dignity when the touch remains teasing but somehow intensifies.

The long path to ruin weaves its course through the rose-pink vale, sinking into the depths of Natasha's core. Never deep enough to completely bury the digit to the third knuckle, but painting hieroglyphs and pictograms upon that spot with altruistic intentions, pressure not sustained long enough to send her flying on an exhilarating high. The telltale signs of control slipping away force Wanda to ease off, the languid circular motions replacing the upward pressure whenever the walls flutter too regularly or the movements take on a regularity she knows all too well. A woman's worst enemy in pleasure is another woman, after all, an courtesan in reading the signs of her own body if she's at all willing to acknowledge them.

The courtesan’s own digit gently explores her other opening. The silence between them is a gift and a curse, heavy as sin. Her balm coated middle finger joins in, pressing and relaxing the tight muscles further. Remembering the bargain, and yearning for the witch to do the same.

One becomes two, a mirror of the rearguard actions. Wanda operates on a borrowed familiarity from her own experience, praying it doesn't show. While still held tantalizingly open, folds pinned back like butterfly wings, the view Natasha may gain is almost unrestricted. Unusually, it's the ring finger -- not the middle -- sliding in alongside the first, a twist of the wrist corkscrewing both midway to that same teased point and exploring in half-moon rotations, first this way and then that, breaching and withdrawing to the point her entrance might contract shut before another sharp thrust brings it all to a start again. The reason for the witch to keep her middle finger free is particular, flicking her fingertip, or her nail, very lightly along the strong muscular bridge externally separating her hand from the courtesan's. A tease to the intense clusters of nerves mean to induce a desire to clench down, to squeeze. Even without it, every rotation surely must be felt between the two of them.

These tactics of stirring and then withholding the release the redheaded dancer yearns for, they become more and more of a test, even as they prolong the anticipation perhaps, and the delightful journey of exploring the mysteries of female sexuality. Natasha cannot help but endure, only able to add to her pleasure with the use of a balm coated pair of fingers. At least Wanda's addition of the second finger brought about a crescendo to the slow lascivious tune that has Natasha's tender nerves vibrating with pleasure. Where she is suspended in a twisted enigma of rope and the activity of the sorceress's differing choice of pair is felt, the third touching the arc of her perineum. She cries out, throaty and low. The dip and thrust of her hand becomes a bridge between their efforts; when a third digit is added by Wanda, she adds another of her own, the ring finger, trying to brush where Wanda stirs her to hummingbird fluttering.

Rope binds her from doing more than dangling in mid-air, suspended in that beautiful dance, held open for the slight current of air blown over her clitoris same as her pretty labia are spread. She has to strain to move her fingers in and out, and that pulls on the harness around her chest, binding her breasts all the more, concentrating the leaden heat on her erect nipples. That is her predicament and her undoing, and Wanda drives her further with another cooling breath assaulting her pearl, the brushstroke lightness of her fingers refusing to make contact with anything higher. All attention is focused below and keeping the Russian teetering on the edge. There won't be relief yet.

 _Is that what you intended, beloved, when you sent me? Was a coy smile and a firm hand all you knew we needed to disarm a beautiful woman?_ Wanda casts her thoughts to the abyss. Strange may be able to hear her, if luck favours him, but certainly she receives no response.

The strain on her chest, concentrated via intricate ropework yoking her swollen breasts, increases -- and with it, Natasha's yearning, her desire. She shakes with her need to come undone, amplified with each moment that passes. Her body rings with sensations, familiar and alien, the promise of a sweetness that appears to be so close yet so far away. Temptation tears at her senses. While there is pleasure in lingering close to the brink of release, it deconstructs her composure with devastating effectiveness.

The corner of the sorceress's lush mouth rises at the question, even as she watches Russian composure crack and the blush deepen in its heat to coat cheeks, throat, and presumably chest under the draped, drying gown. Those robes still give an image of modesty askew, covering so much skin except the critical point displayed to the mirror while the ropes force the blossom hanging from the ceiling to reveal herself to the pitiless weight of her own gaze.

"Please..." the Russian begs, her eyelids fluttering, her cheeks darkening from the blood that rushes into her face. "Please... help me... make me… find my release!"

"Stop hiding behind your poetry. Call it what it is, _cherie_ ," she murmurs, near enough to kiss. Bringing her sodden fingers to dancer lips allows for a taste and scent of heady desire in slick nectar. "Say you what you want." A hand nudges her thigh slightly up, elevating her leg, almost as if Natasha is about to be thrown off balance.

Natasha bites her lip, stung fullness deepening in shade to something obscenely pink like the blushing rays of the sun touching the canal-side palaces. Her eyelids flutter as she checks the mirror, observing the corkscrewing motion of a pair of golden fingers, maddening to watch and even worse to feel. Tearing herself away from the image requires slow rotation on the point of her toes. She blinks when a certain detail suddenly surfaces from the depths of her mind, and drowsy eyes widen at a realization dawning upon her.

Her pearl is assaulted by a gentle pat of the pad of Wanda' thumb, a tempo matching the steady three beat pattern of the heart. A pause, the fourth tap follows before she completely withdraws her fingers. Instead the pattern of circling in figure-eights around that reddening, exposed bead down to the courtesan’s tight entrance gives relief for nothing, leaving her with three digits at play in her rear. Her folds for a moment slip shut as the witch ceases to play altogether, and straightens up to regard Natasha eye to eye, expression moulded into unearthly patience, heavy-lidded eyes smoldering the shade of a summer sky.

"The candle," Natasha murmurs. Her alto voice hardly above a whisper imparts a confessional tone. "You've brought candles along. For what purpose, my lady?"

A frisson of amusement crackles over the distance between them. With a note of, "Don't stop," Wanda goes to recover the candles. She most certainly hasn't forgotten about them. The tapers are both long and fine beeswax, their scent lost under that of sex and petrichor seeping through the windows, the signature of the rain. Lighting them from an oil lamp feeds their wicks and she waits for a final question. "I will make you an offer. You can remain how you are, and have as many _releases_ as you can tolerate on our fingers. Or I will tie you down naked to that chair, dapple you in beeswax, and drive you over when you think you can take no more teasing upon that sweet clit of yours. Either way I'll have you as I want you, but you pick the instrument of your conquering. Your own shameless desires betraying you, or being besieged."

And that smile is nothing short of utterly certain in its lascivious promise, tempered by an ounce of prevention; mindful, always. That Wanda isn't lost to lust, at least her own.

That blush will not go away, as it seems. Russian eyelids are bound to flutter, as the courtesan flutters where she is caught in the web of one Wanda Maximoff, an image that would mark Natasha the butterfly and brunette the merciless spider. With her nerves tuned to high perceptiveness as they are, each gentle pad batted against the courtesan's pearl causes the slender bound frame to shiver with unfulfilled delight and yearning. All four of them. Before that task is abandoned, and the woman's fingers give her freedom she never asked for.

Expressive grey-blue eyes blink. She tongues her lips again, finding them dry. Those fingers presented so closely before her carry the indelible stamp of her own desire made plain in the glossy sheen, bright and terrible. She swallows, digesting the requests made by the brunette. Questions arise that have so different answers on so many levels.

"What I really want? What I need to... climax?" the courtesan inquires with a tremble in her tone, one possibly contrived even if the slow drizzle tracing her exposed inner thigh leaves no doubt of her need. "This is not a question that is usually posed to me." Even as her cheeks remain tinged in a dark rosiness, her breath calms slightly. En pointe, she tries to maintain her rather shaky balance. "To be ravished without a second thought. Providing pleasure as well as I receive it,” she states after a moment, her arms moving to slowly withdraw her fingers where they had been buried in backdoor-related exploration.

The choice Wanda gives her is not responded to immediately, even if Natasha’s eyes widen at the two alternatives the sorceress presents to her.

"Have no doubt your pleasure showers delight on me," replies Wanda, leveraging the moment of consideration to eye her rigging work. She twirls the candles around in her agile fingers. "The choice really comes down to climaxing again and again, or waiting for one orgasm built up to a shattering release."

She tips her head to the side, a long bistre wave running down her shoulder into the stygian drape of her long cloak. Natasha is given that choice; choice of the spider how to be devoured, slowly or rapidly, though it's not one often had. But then, that would be because Wanda isn't truly a spider so much as a hunting cat, and the metaphor suffices for the lovely, blushing mouse. Does she want the cat to go for the jugular or play with her food? All the while, the candle is toyed with, stroked through long fingers, emulating a low, mercurial pace.

The neatly tied up Russian sways ever so slightly in her current delicate state of suspension. But with her clear eyes lingering on the chair in question, it becomes clear she is still pondering her options. When that gaze sweeps back to her charming patroness, it cannot help but fall on the candle the lovely brunette toys with, even as said young woman is not shy to point her to the decision placed before her. Some of those fiery locks framing Natasha's face cling to the dewy skin, slightly damp from perspiration their efforts so far have caused, the hairdo still somewhat intact where the sorceress had bound it back in a hasty knot to keep her tresses from getting in the way.

But it seems her breath seems to calm, the rosiness diminishing into a healthier tone. Teeth hold her lower lip as she comes to her decision, a flicker in her gaze there, and a slightly tremulous exhale to pepper the air. She releases her lip and lifts her eyes finally, deliberately slowed in her reactions..

No one should ever leave a charming courtesan in this one's company, unless they wish to find her subjugated to the rule of a creative mind. Translations are invigorating, and knowledge of how the body betrays the mind dangerous. A nod follows, and then she goes about the task of preparations while Natasha acts as the centerpiece for a stage changed between acts.

"The chair." Again, just two words sealing her fate. After which she falls silent. _Naked. Tied up. Exposed to beeswax._ Seems this dancer is not as timid as she would make others want to believe.

"Do continue. I wouldn't wish you to simmer down too much," Wanda notes as easily as she might tell a violinist to keep rehearsing instead of masturbating in front of a mirror.

The chair is brought behind the ropework, placed just so. A helpful end table dragged over soon has its ornaments: water, wine, beeswax, an aide d'amor or three. Another two spools of unused cream rope end up twisted around the legs and arms, secured by loops. None of this is quickly done, but she does pause to swat the lithe redhead across her backside or reach around to grope her bound breasts in warm hands, kneading and shaping the round orbs until they nearly glow with heat.

"Listen, petal." A whisper in the dancer's ear is gentle, but different in tone, providing instruction. "Your leg will be weak when I lower it. Keep your weight on the other until the pins and needles pass. I don't want you to be hurt." Then ropes passed through the eyelet start to creak as the knot undone gives up tension, permitting Natasha more flexibility and a surge of circulation through her formerly elevated limb. Wanda kneads thigh and calf equally to help, but it won't be long the courtesan is standing. When the ropes are largely freed, she steers the still bound woman back onto the chair.

The chair. It seems, Natasha's senses are still ringing with these two words, her expression wistfully clouded and her body going somewhat slack against the kiss of the ropes enfolding her. It is not that the heat felt in her core subsides with the change of pace; hardly so. Her need crests, enhanced with the tingle of the unknown, the daring. And so she hears Wanda speaking, those next words whispering through a blur. While her focus remains inwards, her awareness pricks, noting how the structure of rope is changed marginally in some places, and to a greater extent about her suspended leg.

Gentle movements push Natasha down onto the edge, a push tilting her in a somewhat supine position with her shoulders parallel to the chair back. She might sit on her hands until those coiling ropes are loosened, though not the harness biting into her inviting breasts. Another quick, perfunctory massage to help invigorate any numb extremities runs from her shoulders to her wrists. Wanda grabs her hips and pulls her further forward until Natasha's thighs bracket her.

 _If only I had one of those devices hidden away in a closet…_ Wanda smiles briefly, a shivering transition from the heady weight of a grim muse into the livelier of nine aspects of the arts and sciences. Her hand skates along smooth flesh and hitched, silken robes.   


Natasha’s agile fingers will not engage in more pleasuring, for now. Even so, the pair of hands that reach to touch and knead her constricted breasts manage to keep the sensation of unsated need burning deep within, and the hard nipples still on display in their rude height beneath the thin and meanwhile slowly drying silk. It also manages to draw the Russian out of her contemplations, her head turning aside to give a nod at the words of warning about her leg. A leg that will react with stinging and tingling when blood once again is allowed to circulate freely. Her stance is unsteady but will only be brief.

"Legs open." Two words, and the rope starts climbing like a pair of greaves over her calves. The first tie secures Natasha behind the knee to the arm of the chair. The second anchors her ankles to the back legs of the furniture, tied in a way that naturally spreads her shapely limbs instead of letting them cross in front. No modesty permitted there, and given the angle, there's not a hole inaccessible to a devious golden-skinned siren admiring her handiwork. From there, it's just a simple bit of binding tying down wrists to the same chair arms, leaving the Russian bloom completely clothed, completely open, and completely prepared for defilement.

Wanda purrs idly, "I'll include the cost of the robe in the token to the Muses, petal."

Her cheeks seem to flush anew when she is arranged to recline, and her arms are freed, more tingling and stinging there. A grateful sigh answers Wanda’s offer of assistance and tender care to lessen the discomfort. The blush deepens upon her cheeks soon enough. Natasha arches and squirms against the chair, bound anew with her legs spread and her arms tied to the armrests. On display, but in another but no less sophisticated manner, she has little choice but to be the star of the show. The purr has her gaze lift to meet that of the brunette. A pause limits the sting of the faint protest, damning at best. “You said I was to be nude?”

"I said naked," agrees the witch, "but not how you would come to _be_ naked." Those fine details might make her a superlative lawyer, or whatever passes for such in the magisterial courts of Venezia. Wanda swats lightly at the Russian's bared backside, force to sting rather than bruise applied in kind. Another smack hits the opposite side, a desultory exchange continued until her fair skin begins to flush a glowing shade of sunset pink. Between those moments, Natasha is rubbed by the oiled fingers and palm of the dusky-haired sorceress, interrupted only by the necessity of gathering more from the rosewood box to spread out liberally around her folds and one long, painted line straight up the cleft.

Natasha nods, her chin lowering just so. Clarification offered illuminates the matter only so far. A spanking richly heats her skin and earns not so much as a sound, her full mouth drawn into a lengthened line. Riding out the pain is a matter of pride, perhaps. Dark lashes flutter at the two light swats administered to the curves of her backside. The touch of the sorceress's fingers, even if they are merely applying more of that mysterious balm, leaves her simmering. A soft sigh escaping her when they draw across her folds forces her to strain against the ropes, as though she might possibly chase the retreating digits.

Silk is pulled aside, and without much pause, Wanda rises to fetch one of the burning candles and a pair of small shears from the cupboard. Shears to destroy the dignity of the sky-blue robe, and the candle softened up until the tip glistens under welling, molten tears as pure an ivory as the furnishings. The beeswax taper she presses upon the tabletop among other objects, its golden light suffused against skin and fabric alike. With short, quick snips, the shears cut away a long, straight line into the gown from Natasha's bare mons all the way past her navel where the rope harness constricts her chest. Another few elegant snips parts that curtain further, leaving the garment split open like a pair of butterfly wings, equally as useless.

In the candle glow, subtle details come into dramatic revelation. Shadows scud across the dramatic planes of Natasha’s face, throwing a copper sheen across her damp hair. The quiver of her curling lashes when the scissors come too close is nothing compared to the tightening of her limber muscles. Dancer’s legs stiffen a little upon the chair, her posture still subdued and yet not fully slack within the ropes holding her fast. When her mouth opens, soft and round, it could well seem she suddenly regrets the decision made earlier. But yet, before the candle will come into play, the light blue gown is cut open. Every snip eases the courtesan away from a frenzied defense of her unscarred flesh. The robe is a tolerable sacrifice in the gentler arts of lovemaking and pleasure. She even dares to raise her chin, the better for her guest to admire the performance baring her completely now from slightly above her waist, where her breasts are still arranged in artful obscenity, to her feet.

Two fingers thrust inside her expertly curve upwards to find that buried spot of exquisite sensitivity and mill over its surface in tender oscillations, never predictable. Wanda's smile never quite changes in its enigmatic cant as she reaches for the candle, and leaves it hovering over the courtesan's midsection. A pause follows, just enough as she toys with the shaft, the playful flame leaping at the wick and growing with passing moments. Molten beeswax runs down and gathers in a drop, much lower temperature than a cheap taper might be. A fat globule descends and lands in a splash upon Natasha between the rise of her butterfly hips, some centimeters off her navel. The wax begins to dry rapidly, contracting as the heat dissipates and leaves behind a weak, pale blue film. Another dribble runs up in frosting lines towards her ribs, swaying and meandering over the corporeal terrain.

With preparations concluded, the pair of fingers thrust into her welcoming heat makes the Russian's frame flutter, fingers tightening briefly about the armrests, and her eyes widen. Blood rushes into her face anew when the sensitive bundle of nerves at that hidden spot inside of her is found and teased. Weaving a susurrus of low cries from her throat finally gives voice to the treasured sounds of pleasure wracked out of a courtesan, shared within the confines of the acoustically perfect studio. The spell Wanda detected earlier further rebounds the longer moans into a rushing tide surrounding them both. Breath hitched and uneven, the redhead has no ability to flinch away from the candle tipped over her to drop one splattering bead and another. Growing film spreads out atop her skin. Wherever it hits, the hot caress seeps through skin and ignites her clenched restraint.

Another dribble teases over the axis of her midsection, and then rain tumbles down to crust the surface of her silk robes right over her nipples, gathering in tiny pyramids with deliberation. And never, never do those wicked digits cease driving Natasha towards coming. With all the decided fickleness of the weather in alpine heights, Wanda stops now and then. As often as she backs off to deny the courtesan a peak of intense pleasure, she advances, only to pin her within sight of the climax she's forbidden within a sheer veil of dripping pleasure and mild pain.

A second spill of gratuitous heat hits her ribcage, and Natasha drowns in the same musical hymns wrested from her. No protection afforded by silk helps her here, the mounded wax crowning her tight nipples in points peeled by the throes of her restrained body. Sounds caged in her throat ascend to a higher pitch, stirred on by those dubiously twinned digits that produce their own liquid melodies. Plundering the molten channel only produces more wetness to stir up, and the witch’s palm is soon enough soaked in a liberal coating. When one artfully rounded breast sheathed partly in silk is showered by waxen splashes, she clenches in desperation upon the digits. More wax is added in a tortuous heap that at the same time stiffens about her evidence of arousal.

Two fingers corkscrew inside her, pushing against her walls and spreading them apart with a merciless tempo that lasts all too short a time. The inward thrust plunges those digits far as they can go, withdrawing slowly, thrust in again with the same forceful tempo. The candle drifts lazily over the peak of Natasha's breast, dropping lines of molten wax to gather on the fabric or the rope, building a higher structure that contracts when it dries, to pinch the skin and cool on material. Then as rapidly as the fingering began, it stops. Wanda gently runs her nails up and down the captive Russian's inner thighs, teasing between a sting and tickling, letting the candle dribble a cream line across her ribs and diagonally towards her hip bone, more of those heated waxen kisses bestowed atop one another, seeking out fair skin untouched.

Apply caution lest the enduring Russian flower be pushed over the edge much earlier than planned. Knowing what is to come, Natasha gasps, appreciating the heat that is felt much more intensely on a nipple that yearns to be touched and pinched than the bare skin of her stomach. A canvas for the most unlikely of media, her skin and ruined gown cling taut to her body. A whimper slips past her lips as her eyes close for a moment, her lips curled in a strained half-smile when more drops of wax follow. Nerves vibrate in a tormenting fashion, connecting her screaming nipples with her throbbing pearl. Wanda’s pauses keep Natasha dangling there on the verge of a climax that, the longer it is withheld, will prove all the more shattering.

If only she could scream.

Then comes an open smack of three fingertips against pouting folds, tempered just to this side of pleasure rather than pain. "Look at me," the brunette witch says. "Tell me what you need right now."

Anticipation of her release approaching implodes on the sharp sensation encountered under deft golden hands. Incredulity sweeps away any articulated reply that the assassin could possibly tender, her voluntary responses reduced to a querying warble. Her slender, bound physique shakes, a leaf in a winter gale, and the tiny hot pools converge on slow, faded blue rivulets nearer and closer to the source of another powerful source of stoked heat. She gasps aloud, throwing her head back. The chair ominously creaks at the strain a single dancer inflicts. Something altogether disproportionate to her size and the materials binding her reminds the risk of the unguarded redhead. Whatever scandal might be derived from her evident enjoyment of the rougher treatment, she dares to meet head on. Flashing eyes brighten. Her smile is almost wild.

A different tangent taken then. One of her lubricated fingers circling Natasha's rosette and threatening to press into the centre. The candle becomes an instrument with a purpose, especially when the courtesan’s slick folds spread open again between thumb and forefinger, exposing all that slick pink flesh. A flame wavers between them, spread thighs bound to prevent her legs from closing. "Do you want it here?"

But is a reply really required when Wanda already commits to the drastic pursuit of the Russian's pleasure? Natasha shudders, a light tremor acknowledging the unspeakably profane truth laid forth. Courage no more fails her than the sun ceases to rise. Her hands grip the armrests of the chair, back a pronounced curve under a dewy gleam of perspiration. Unable to shelter herself, the dancer rises as far as the ropes permit her. That finger trailing between the curves of her buttocks threatens to violate her, and the rosy starburst contracts. The question makes perfect sense in the inverted context of a performance already progressed so far, where she is the instrument and not the performer.

Natasha swallows hard. The heat of the candle occasionally glazing her in a fresh layer of wax no longer holds the fatal attraction to a moth so much as the golden-skinned young woman holding it. The Russian's cheeks darken even more in a deep blush, but even so, she can only reply with a breathed "Yes!"

Those twilit eyes don't waver from the blue-gray portals to Natasha's very soul. As soon as she starts to speak, at any rate, the Russian courtesan will feel the violation in her backside, the rhythm singular for a few seconds, then twinned.

And while the courtesan should perhaps close or at least avert her eyes, they remain wide open to catch every detail.

This is her handiwork, reducing a virtuoso to trembling need, shriven of robes and veil. Not for a heartbeat does Wanda take for granted the precarious state of her dominance, for the presumed submission of her quarry could be no more than illusion. The ropes unbound might give Natasha Romanova far too much freedom to do as she will. _Close, but not close enough_.

  
Listening to intuition comes as second nature after a lifetime of instinct honed by running from the darkest shadows of her family legacy. Wanda doesn’t trust the redhead further than she can throw her even so.

The witch curves a smile and sends a lick of heated beeswax drops to condense into oblong splatters marching up the line of the ballerina’s bound leg instead, those tears coalescing into long runnels over the sleek inner thigh. A diversionary tactic, largely to allow Natasha a brief exchange of sensations; while her skin tingles under a hardening waxy shell, her tender rosette is being pried further open by a shift of fingers from ring and middle to pointer and middle, the digits much more agile in scissoring apart and curving within such narrow confines.

The blessing of the heavy oil-based balm proves its worth now, warming to a vibration on the nerves with the wintergreen, but thick enough to prevent much friction. Not that it's much of an issue as her own wetness mingles beautifully with it for a slickness suiting being finger-fucked without relief.

Expectations have been thwarted so often on the rain-soaked eve that Natasha should know better than to think Wanda may proceed directly with what she spontaneously agreed to. Still, her gasps add to the experience over the croaking chair and tossed hair when hot dripping wax sprinkles along her thigh, running down lazily in tiny slow viscous glaziers, that could look -- with the right amount of imagination -- like fingers of a troll grabbing at her leg. The low heat indeed distracts her from what Wanda has in store for her next, come what may.

  


Only then does Wanda centre the candle and tip it parallel to the floor, sending a precisely measured stream of molten wax to gather in a rivulet across Natasha's naked slit. The first beads only go so far, but those following run towards the exposed pearl of her clitoris and divert around it, straight for the sunset, glistening cleft held so invitingly open. And _all_ of it is visible in the mirror. Right down to the way her folds dimple under the pressure of the fingertips holding them open, and care to which a shift of the witch's palm upwards might lay her hand flat over the courtesan's perfect slit to guard from any true harm. A dangerous game with a surprised, if beautifully defiled, partner.

But close. Those wax dribbles come so close, each giving an intense spark when landing and another when cooling, wicking up all the moisture as a thin crust forms to a hardened seal. When one tongue of wax finally reaches the hood of her pearl, Natasha receives some relief: a hard, demanding kiss stolen from her mouth, Wanda seizing her due with all the sustained violence of a tempest behind so calm a mask. Still waters run deep, they say; she's not a shallow pond, she's the bloody abyss of the western ocean.

And the courtesan but a small leaf that is about to be whirled away in the tempest that has her in its grasp.

The shift in use of fingers comes as a total surprise, the slender bound form of the dancer squirms when more space is claimed. The initial faint discomfort of the stretching of her rear passage dissipates into a deeper smolder that leads Natasha tiptoeing into the arms of room. She indulges herself until this too proves to be a manoeuvre to distract, as it will be now that the candle spills wax where Natasha had requested, in her amiable unknowing naiveté. Drops hit and progress slowly, molten beeswax slithering across fair skin in rosy trails until meeting the swollen pearl. Every millimeter gained breaks and gathers around the hood, a sensation something outside her frame of reference. Pain dissolves in a muzzy confusion riding on exquisite pleasure when the shocks fade, spreading into a tangled miasma of delight riding on her nerves. Her eyes remain fixed on the silver mirror, duress sketched in bold lines across her unfocused expression. The very sight elicits a softer moan into the kisses stolen from her lips, flavouring Wanda’s mouth in kind.

There was a promise to warn if it hurt. Even if the one who inflicts the hurt is its vouchsafe. A run of wax pours up over the scattered patterns already dried in varied width and strength all along her abdomen up to her breasts and no further. The flame is brought nowhere near the Russian's face, though that hungry, demanding kiss is another matter altogether. Wanda’s lips trace along the upturned pair, and bear down, strengthening the more she stokes the courtesan to a breaking point. Then in an instant the wick is pinched out, the stripe of soot painted by thumb and pointer finger down the inside of Natasha’s bound thigh. While their lips are still pressed together, the tempest buffeting them both, two more fingers plunge in to join those already occupying the more taboo of entrances.

The precaution made by Wanda is noted, a faint shudder there when Natasha realizes what she is doing. Sonnets muffled in a sudden and very unexpected hard kiss taper off as she thrashes to the dual assaults on her bared holes, the slick channel of her sex swallowing the digits even as the firm grip from her rear unconsciously tightens. Tremors build into outright shaking in the dancer’s lithe silhouette, her legs seeking to shut and the ropes denying them. Damned in her efforts to get away, all she can do is seek the end of the suffering in the glorious rapture. What intense heat departed from a pinched out wick is nothing compared to the conflagration devouring her.

“Please,” her voice finally breaks into a whisper.  
  
If she can speak, she is not far enough gone for Wanda’s purposes.

But Natasha will again be left hovering upon the precipice, for those two contrary patterns of movement work against one another. A thrust in meets stillness; a withdrawal, the sudden rotation of Wanda's wrist. The whole point is bringing her to a rolling boil and halting there, again and again, until the seconds grate by like minutes while the redhead floats in ecstasy of a kind. Until the wetness can be liberally smeared atop the balm along the length of her folds, and delivered in a stripe right down her mouth when the kiss breaks.

A pause: the candle is found, and rubbed right back over Natasha, nudging her pearl, traveling down to the entrance of her succulent little pussy, where the blunt edge teases her with promise of more. Slow circles practically ask the unspoken question.

An answer means the warm beeswax is slid into her, not terribly deep, but enough to hold. Why? The sorceress needs freedom of movement. And then, of all times, the witch chooses to peel the coated wax off Natasha’s left breast, then the right. Fabric isn't quite the same as bare wax on skin. But each nipple has its moment to sting while deliciously engorged, and only then will the fabric be snipped open with the shears to display the pink nubs in all their pride. Perfect for being sucked; one after the other, tasted and tugged between willing teeth until they cannot possibly be any more erect.

And then she looks at the work done, purring, "I think you're about ready to be fucked, beautiful."

The courtesan’s art falls aside, another mask set askew. Whatever cunning prevails in their games of chance is well concealed, and Natasha cries out in serrated despair and need.

 _Remember why I do this, my love. You told me to disarm her, and I shall, won’t I? Pray that book is worth it._ Wanda casts her thoughts into the void to her lover separated from her across the dimensions. She could well sweat a fingertip skims up her spine, impossible though that may be.

**Author's Note:**

> Just one more section to go and that will finish off Lecons des Tenebres! Feedback is always warmly welcomed. Feel free to drop in a comment or kudo if you enjoyed this work! <3


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